LeanBlog Podcast #23 – Group Health Cooperative Lean Panel

Episode #23 of the LeanBlog Podcast features a panel of Lean leaders from the Group Health Cooperative, a consumer-governed, nonprofit health care system that coordinates care and coverage. Based in Seattle, Group Health and its subsidiary health carriers, Group Health Options, Inc. and KPS Health Plans, serve over 500,000 members in Washington and Idaho. GHC has been on a Lean journey, as documented on their “Daily Kaizen” blog. Joining us on the Podcast are three of their Lean Leaders:

In this Podcast, they discuss how GHC got started with Lean, their early “point improvement” successes, and their transition to a more systemic approach to a Lean management system through their “model line” efforts.

8:30 Had to make sure they weren't losing gains from earlier lean efforts — started doing more to fully ingrain lean concepts into the management practices and culture

9:15 Three components to the “Model Line” 1) Standard work of the daily management system 2) Value Streams and RPIW's to “turn the organization on it's side,” from functional organization to process organization and 3) hoshin kanri (policy deployment), building discipline around planning (goals and the means)

10:40 Ted: Have you had to adapt the lean management model to fit into a healthcare environment?

11:00 “Copy the thinking and the philosophy, not the tools”…. “What's the tool you can use? Your Brain!”

11:30 Focused on providing the right care at the right time, rather than relying on technology (or relying on “tried and true” technology)

17:20 The goal is “lifelong health for our members… working with patients before they get sick.”

17:45 James: What have the benefits and results of the Model Line area been?

18:35 ThedaCare and John Touissant showed great humbleness even with their success

19:00 Doing as many kaizen events as you can wasn't enough.” Wanted to fundamentally change the leadership model, not the “all knowing and all doing” with the staff “checking their brain at the parking lot.”

20:00 The VP over the HPA area fully embraced Lean and change himself20:45 Had a rigorous, step-by-step method of teaching the skills and doing daily practice. The biggest change was getting the middle managers and VP to change the way they interacted with supervisors, that was the foundation for the operational changes (workcells, etc.)

22:00 Lee: RPIW's changed the thinking of a lot of folks, but it didn't get high enough to change the behavior of the leaders

22:50 Changing core thinking before changing core processes has led to better sustainment

23:10 James: Where GHC hopes this goes… the Model Line needs to be a model to learn from, applied in other areas, forcing the organization to think more about value streams and less about traditional budgeting processes

27:00 What kind of feedback are you getting from employees about Lean? (lab example)”This is the most amazing experience I have ever had in all of my experience at Group Health”

29:00 Ted on helping doctors and professionals meeting their goals

30:00 Lee: it can be hardest on the middle managers, having to change their ways

If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at leanpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the “Lean Line” at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id “mgraban”. Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast.

Please check out my main blog page at www.leanblog.orgThe RSS feed content you are reading is copyrighted by the author, Mark Graban., , , on the author's copyright.

[…] by Mark Graban on November 22, 2011 · 0 comments Today, I’m linking to a post from a new blog written by the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business (“Think Op-Ex“). The post “What’s in a name?” features thoughts from James Hereford, formerly of Group Health (part of the group being interviewed in my old podcast). […]